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Statistics for Heritage and Tourist Railways in Victoria


ATR Statistical Information - 2006 calendar Year

Victoria has a large variety of Heritage Railways and Tramways. For example, alone of all the Australian States, we have four operational electrically powered tourist tramways as well as the static tramway Museum at Hawthorn Tramway Depot in Melbourne. In addition  to the tramways we have operational Heritage Railways of many gauges located right throughout the State.  Lest anyone thinks that we are a very small player in the tourism  and entertainment business, when we aggregate all our figures, you find that we are now a significant force in the State of Victoria.

We operate our trams and trains over a total length of track of 162. km. Unlike the commercial operators, we are fully responsible for the complete maintenance of this track. We operate over a variety of track gauges commencing with184mm, 610mm,762mm, 1067mm,1435mm, and 1600mm.

We run a large variety of trams and trains and some 542,000 patrons paid to enter our premises. This generated a turnover of $9.9M. To do this we employed 44 full time staff, 37 part time staff and were assisted by 1,894 volunteers.

We have 28 steam engines and 47 diesels on the operational  register.  (Note not all of these are operational at the one time). We had 10 electric train carriages, 192 other passenger carriages, and 21 vans. We also had 138 freight vehicles, 42 trolleys, and 37 other railed vehicles. There were 14 railmotors and 4 buses.

Our tramway members have some 125 tramcars in their  collections. Many of these are operational and  range from the original early horse trams.  The collections held by our members also includes  cable, and electric trams operating in their native towns. There are even some of Melbourne's modern trams in the collections. The statistics does not include the Historic trams located at the Government's Hawthorn Tramway Museum.

Victorian Figures in a Nut Shell 

 2004 (in Blue)

Classification 2006 2004
Length of Track 161km 160km
Permanent Staff 44 46
Part Time Staff 37 43
Volunteers          1894 1412 
 Total Turnover $9.9m  $8.8m
Patrons  542,585 483,000
Engines - Steam      28  27 
Engines Steam - Not  operational 46 51
 Electric Carriages and engines   10 1
 Electric Not Operational   19 10
Engines - Diesel 47 45
Diesel Engines  -  not  operational 12 16
Carriages           192 150
Carriages -  not  operational 77 69
Vans                       21 20
Vans - not  operational 33 24
Freight  Vehicles 138 203
Freight - Not  operational 217 117
 Rail Motors         14 14
Rail Motors - Not operational 13 7
Tramcars               66 75
Trams - Not  operational 59 39
Trolleys 42 38
Trolleys - not  operational 29 15
Buses 4 4
Buses - Not  operational 9 8

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